Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, before we have the quorum, the Senator from Pennsylvania is the principal cosponsor. We have 20 minutes remaining. We have some other speakers coming. I will try to borrow some time from Senator McConnell when he regains the floor. I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call then be charged to both sides.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Again, the distinguished Senator from Connecticut passionately speaks common sense. It is the most moving speech I have heard with respect to this particular initiative. I wish everyone could have been here to hear that. I hope they look at his remarks in the Record so they can understand just exactly what is behind this particular initiative. Mr. President, Senator Specter and I have a constitutional amendment which states that Congress is hereby authorized to regulate or control expenditures in Federal elections. Senator Specter and I have been here before to argue for this same amendment and we are pleased to have this opportunity again, this time with the support of Senators Byrd, Cleland, Miller, Biden and Reid. But Mr. President, this is perhaps the most timely debate for this Constitutional Amendment because critics here in this body and commentators have spent much time discussing the constitutionality of McCain-Feingold and the various proposed amendments to this bill. I want to state clearly, here at the outset, that this amendment does not frustrate, oppose, support, or endorse any particular plan of reform. Rather, it is the first step toward meaningful reform, regardless of the approach. To that end, I hoped to debate this at the conclusion of McCain-Feingold so that it could not be used as a sword against that measure. We had our first fit of conscience when we passed the 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act. This act came about due to the untoward activity in the 1967 and 1971 Presidential races. I want to remind everyone that this was a deliberate, bipartisan effort. It set spending limits on campaigns, limited candidates' personal spending, limited expenditures by independent persons or groups for or against candidates, set voluntary spending limits as a condition for receiving public funding, set disclosure requirements for campaign spending and receipts, set limits on contributions for individuals and political committees, and created the Federal Election Commission. This was a comprehensive proposal, with each part complementing the other. However, the Supreme Court supplanted this regime with its views on campaign finance in the now infamous decision, Buckley v. Valeo. The resulting system put a premium on fund raising and encouraged covert money donations. Don't take my word for it, look at Justice Kennedy's dissenting opinion in the recent Court decision, Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC: The plain fact is that the compromise the Court invented in Buckley set the stage for a new kind of speech to enter the political system. It is covert speech. The Court has forced a substantial amount of political speech underground, as contributors and candidates devise even more elaborate methods of avoiding contribution limits, limits which take no account of rising campaign costs. The preferred method has been to conceal the real purpose of the speech. Soft money may be contributed to political parties in unlimited amounts . . . Issue advocacy, like soft money, is unrestricted . . . while straightforward speech in the form of financial contributions paid to a candidate, speech subject to full disclosure and prompt evaluation by the public, is not. The current system would be unfortunate, and suspect under the First Amendment, had it evolved from a deliberate legislative choice; but its unhappy origins are in our earlier decree in Buckley, which by accepting half of what Congress did (limiting contributions) but rejecting the other (limiting expenditures) created a misshapen system, one which distorts the meaning of speech. Forgive me for the length of the above quote, but I feel Justice Kennedy hit the nail on the head. Now, we must excise this cancer from our political system. But it is an exercise in futility to address any particular campaign reform plan without first enacting a constitutional amendment because Buckley is still the law of the land. One critical flaw in the Buckley decision is that the Court equated money with speech. Justice Stevens, however, correctly noted in his concurring opinion in Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, ``Money is property; it is not speech.'' Justice Stevens explains that while the Constitution protects an individual's decision about how to use his or her property, ``[t]hese property rights, however, are not entitled to the same protection as the right to say what one pleases.'' An individual's right to get up on a stump and speak on behalf of or in opposition to a candidate is markedly different from ``speaking'' with money. Justice Kennedy, also in Shrink, observes that there is a difference between inspiring volunteers through speech and hiring volunteers with money. The first activity deserves the utmost protection. Unfortunately, those are minority views of the Court. For the sake of argument, assume money is speech as my colleague from Kentucky asserts. At the start of the debate we heard the Senator from Kentucky provide me the compliment of saying that ``I understand the nub of the issue.'' Of course after that fleeting moment he argues why we should not accept this measure. Of course there was a time when he saw the value of this approach. In 1987, my colleague offered a constitutional amendment to restrict the amount of money wealthy individuals could spend on their election. The important point is not that he once advocated that position, but rather, it recognizes that speech is not completely unfettered when there are significant interests that require its limitation. The following are a few examples of where speech is limited: If it creates a clear and present danger of imminent lawless action; if it constitutes fighting words; if it is obscene; [The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 in FCC v. Pacifica that the Federal Communications Commission could limit what they considered offensive language on the airwaves]; if it constitutes defamation; if it amounts to false and deceptive advertisement. Let me also point out a couple of speech restrictions perhaps more closely related to the current debate. The Hatch Act limits federal employee involvement in campaigns. Admittedly, the ``Hatch Act Amendments of 1993'' removed most of the restrictions on voluntary, free-time activities by federal employees; however the following are a sample of the restrictions that still apply: Federal employees are generally restricted from soliciting, accepting or receiving political contributions from any person; they may not run for office in most partisan elections; they are generally prohibited from engaging in partisan campaign activity on federal property, on official duty time, while wearing a uniform or insignia identifying them as federal officials or employees, or while using a government vehicle. Finally, as Justice Breyer, in Nixon v. Shrink, notes ``The Constitution often permits restrictions on speech of some form in order to prevent a few from drowning out the many--in Congress, for example, where constitutionally protected debate, Art. I, Sec. 6, is limited to provide every Member an equal opportunity to express his or her views. Or in elections, where the Constitution tolerates numerous restrictions on ballot access, limiting the political rights of some so as to make effective the political rights of the entire electorate.'' This is an important point Mr. President. I have long maintained that it is ill- advised to allow one who possesses more money to drown out the speech of another with less money. Essentially what we are saying now is if you have money, speak, if you don't, you have the right to keep your mouth shut. It is from this line of arguments that I really draw my conclusion that I am the one promoting speech. So there is precedent for limiting speech where there are equally important interests at stake. Our campaign system is of sufficient importance and has sufficient problems to warrant limited restrictions. Just consider the affect of the cost of running for office. The exorbitant costs of campaigns today are a real hurdle, preventing many people from throwing their hat into the arena. The average amount spent on a campaign for the United States Senate in the year 2000 was approximately $7 million. Can you imagine that. That means you have to raise on average $22,000 each week for the six years you are in the Senate in order to get ready for your next election. Or stated another way, you have to raise over $3000.00 per day. Yes that's per day. Saturday and Sunday, you need to raise $3000.00. Something is wrong when you have to raise more on Sunday than your church. Sadly this has really become a money chase. Rampant fund raising threatens the very fabric of democracy because it causes people to lose faith in the political system. They see their candidates motivated by contributions and not by important issues in their community. It often seems to the voting public that its voice is being drowned out by the hum of cash registers. That of course was not always the case. When I first ran for office, much of my campaign work was accomplished through volunteers. It was more enjoyable to campaign because you could really focus on the individual citizen rather than on raising money. You can't afford to go door to door anymore. By extension, while politicians are out courting money they are obviously not in Washington addressing the concerns of their constituents. There is no doubt that our current campaign finance system has bred absenteeism in the Senate chamber. We no longer arrive to work at 9 o'clock in the morning on Monday and struggle to close shop by 5 o'clock in the afternoon on Friday like we once did. Now on Monday and on Tuesday morning, there is no real floor debate because so many people are out raising money. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, we request time windows so that we can do more fund raising. And then as soon as Friday rolls around, we bolt from the starting blocks for another leg in the money race. If curing this sickly system isn't in the governmental interest, then I don't know what is. We realize these problems and are now faced with the present dilemma of deciding how to reform this broken system under the misguided framework laid out in Buckley. The Senator from Arizona and the Senator from Wisconsin are to be commended. They are dedicated and have successfully drawn attention to this issue. But their critics assert the same two arguments: 1. their proposal does not go far enough, or 2. their proposal goes too far and runs afoul to the Constitution. This will be the case with any serious proposal because of Buckley. The unconstitutionality of the Snowe-Jeffords portion of the McCain- Feingold bill which addresses issue advocacy has been talked about, and written about. Recently, Charles Lane wrote an article for the Washington Post titled, ``Court Challenge Likely if McCain-Feingold Bill Passes.'' The reason for this is that in Buckley, the Supreme Court held that campaign finance limitations apply only to express communications, such as ``vote for,'' ``elect,'' ``support,'' ``cast your ballot for,'' and ``Smith for Congress,'' that advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for federal office in express terms. If express words such as these are not present, then it is issue advocacy and cannot be regulated. The circuit courts, following the Buckley precedent, have drawn a bright line by requiring these express words and rejecting intermediate tests to determine whether something constitutes express advocacy or issue advocacy. Maine Right to Life Committee v. FEC, Oct. 6, 1997, the First Circuit affirmed the district court's opinion that the ``reasonable person'' standard in its definition of ``express advocacy'' infringed upon issue advocacy, an area protected by the First Amendment. The Fourth Circuit reached a similar conclusion in FEC v. Christian Action Network, 92 F.3d 1178, 4th Cir. 1997. The Second Circuit, in Vermont Right to Life Committee v. Sorrell, determined state campaign regulations were unconstitutional because they regulated express and implicit advocacy. It is evident that when the government seeks to regulate anything more than express or explicit advocacy, which is what they try to do in McCain-Feingold, the courts strike it down. Mr. President, the soft money ban of McCain-Feingold also faces constitutional challenges. The Supreme Court made it clear in Buckley that any restriction on First Amendment rights must be narrowly tailored to further a substantial governmental interest such as the prevention of corruption or the appearance of corruption. In Federal Election Commission v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee, Colorado I., the Court raised doubts about the risk of corruption between parties and candidates. On remand to the district court, Colorado II, the court examined whether section 441a(d) of the FECA may constitutionally impose coordinated expenditure limits upon parties. The lower court found that ``contributor-to-party-to-candidate pressure'' is an ``unlikely avenue of corruption'' and that party pressure over candidates does not result in corruption. The court reasoned that political parties serve to promote political ideas and by deciding whether or not to support a candidate that subscribes to these ideas does not equal corrupting influence. This case was again appealed to the Tenth Circuit. In its May 5, 2000 decision, the circuit court affirmed the district court and echoed its reasoning. Allow me to read the following quotes from the circuit court's decision: ``Political parties today represent a broad-based coalition of interests, and there is nothing pernicious about this coalition shaping the views of its candidates;'' ``However, the premise of this theory, namely that, political parties can corrupt the electoral system by influencing their candidates' positions, gravely misunderstands the role of political parties in our democracy,'' and finally; ``The opportunity for corruption or its appearance of corruption is greatest when the political spending is motivated by economic gain. As discussed below, political parties are diverse entities, one step removed from the candidate, and they exist for noneconomic reasons.'' Based on these cases, the ban on soft money is unconstitutional as well. James Bopp is general counsel to the James Madison Center for Free Speech and served as counsel in more than 60 election-related cases, including the Maine Right to Life v. FEC and the Vermont Right to Life v. FEC cases mentioned earlier. Mr. Bopp is certainly an expert in this area. That is why I found his analysis of McCain-Feingold particularly persuasive. According to Bopp: Because McCain-Feingold 2001 prohibits the raising of ``soft money'' by national political parties, they have no such money available for issue advocacy, legislative, and organizational activities. It treats political parties as if they were federal-candidate election machines . . . Yet these restrictions fail constitutional muster. Political parties enjoy the same unfettered right to issue advocacy as other entities, which is especially appropriate because advancing a broad range of issues is their raison d'etre. ``Reforms'' banning political parties from receiving and spending so- called ``soft money'' cannot be justified as preventing corruption, since the Supreme Court has already held that interest insufficient for restricting issue advocacy in Buckley. According to Bopp, if there is not the threat of corruption or the appearance of corruption when we speak of political parties, then you can't restrict how they raise their money. Thus, the soft money regulations in McCain-Feingold are also likely to be found unconstitutional. In light of the above, a constitutional amendment is a necessary first step to real reform. Until we do this we are merely trying to patch a leaky dam with Bandaids. Certainly, amending the constitution is not something we should do lightly. But, campaign finance goes right to the heart of our democracy. That is likely the reason that of the nine most recent amendments, seven relate to our electoral process: The 19th amendment gave women the right to vote; the 20th set the beginning of Presidential and Congressional terms and provided for succession of the President and Vice President, (i.e., this amendment established procedure to replace the President or Vice President elect upon their death or incapacitation); the 22nd amendment provided Presidential term limits; the 23rd amendment provided the D.C. electoral votes in Presidential elections; the 24th amendment eliminated the Poll tax; the 25th amendment established the procedure for Presidential succession whether by death or incapacitation; the 26th amendment changed the voting age to 18. Surprisingly, the average length of time it took for passage of Amendments 20-26 was a little over 17 months. What's even more compelling is the fact that the 24th amendment already recognizes the influence of money on the freedom of political speech. It says that it is unconstitutional to place a financial burden on voters in order for them to voice their political opinions at the polls. In other words, it gives us ``one man, one vote.'' The poorest of the poor can cancel out the richest of the rich. This is the same spirit that's driving campaign finance reform today. Mr. President, it isn't that the people do not trust us. I think they are bored with us. When you talk about campaigns and everything else like that, today's model is, you hire a consultant, and he gets the poll, and you get seven or eight hot-button items or issues, and you counsel: Do not take too strong a position pro or con--for or against-- but, on the contrary, say you are concerned: ``I'm troubled.'' Everybody who comes to this blooming place is troubled, and they are concerned. But I can't find them taking a position on anything. And that goes for Republicans and for Democrats--all the candidates. So unless you get a unique individual, such as the Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, who had no poll, obviously, to get around to this campaign finance--and certainly it was not boring. He kept them on fire, and kept them going, and kept them interested--and keeps them interested. That is why we are having this debate. But the truth of the matter is that politics has been taken out of campaigning. Let me emphasize what the Senator from West Virginia was talking about regarding campaigns. No. 1, we used to have nothing but volunteers. I ran for the State house of representatives for $100 back in 1948--over 50 years ago. There were 24 candidates. I led the ticket. But I worked, and I saw people. I talked and listened to people. There weren't fundraisers to go to. Now, in contrast, there are only fundraisers to go to. In fact, on the recent campaign, I was going around not just thanking but talking to old friends, and many said: Why are you coming around now? You have already won a wonderful race by a good majority. Why are you coming around now? I said: I didn't get to see you. I didn't get to talk to you. I could only go to fundraisers. Mind you me, if you have run, as I have, for the legislature, for Lieutenant Governor, Governor, and the U.S. Senate--I have been elected seven times--at the country store at the crossroads outside of Honea Path on the way into Anderson, they want to know why I didn't come by. So I go by that shift at a mill in Edmund, SC. If I don't get to that 3 o'clock shift, I have ``Potomac fever,'' I have forgotten about the people. So I know what it is to campaign without money. It is much better than this money chase and the TV squibs about how I am against crime, how I am for education. That crowd over there, they come out for education. They did their best to abolish the Department under President Reagan, under President Bush, under President Clinton. They had the Contract in the mid-1990s, a few years ago, and wanted to abolish the Department of Education. But that is canned now. They are all for education. They are not for it, but they have to identify with it because the company consultants have said so. That is what is going on. So the people really are bored with all the campaigning because there is nothing to it. You can't get them to take a stand other than they are just for this or that popular thing. They finally found out it was unpopular to try to veto, but they tried for 20 years to abolish the Department of Education. I can tell you because I was here and helped defend it over those 20 years. But the people have been taken out of the campaign themselves. That is all you have, time to go on the money chase. Obviously, those making the contributions have already made up their mind or they wouldn't have come to the event in the first instance. And you wouldn't have gone to the event except for the money involved. So there it is. I think that at this particular time, other than citing a dozen variations of the first amendment--or you might say amendments to that first amendment--I think it ought to be emphasized just exactly what has occurred in the words of Justice Kennedy in the Nixon v. Shrink Missouri case. I quote from him: The plain fact is that the compromise the Court invented in Buckley set the stage for a new kind of speech to enter the political system. It is covert speech. The Court has forced a substantial amount of political speech underground, as contributors and candidates devise even more elaborate methods of avoiding contribution limits, limits which take no account of rising campaign costs. The preferred method has been to conceal the real purpose of the speech. Soft money may be contributed to political parties in unlimited amounts. . . . Issue advocacy, like soft money, is unrestricted. . .while straightforward speech in the form of financial contributions paid to a candidate, speech subject to full disclosure and prompt evaluation by the public is not. The current system would be unfortunate, and suspect under the First Amendment, had it evolved from a deliberate legislative choice; but its unhappy origins are in our earlier decree in Buckley, which by accepting half of what Congress did (limiting contributions) but rejecting the other (limiting expenditures) created a misshapen system, one which distorts the meaning of speech. Let me add my comment: And distorts the freedom of speech. The constitutional amendment will give the opportunity to the U.S. Congress to restore that freedom of speech to all Americans. We have used over three-quarters of our time, Mr. President, and I have some speakers coming who want to speak when they arrive here at 5 o'clock. So let me suggest the absence of a quorum. I would like to speak to the distinguished leader on the other side to see if I could charge it to him, or certainly not just run the time out in a quorum call and then have 2 hours and no chance to respond. But I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. You have gone too far now. I thank the distinguished Senator, but the Senator from Nevada has gone a little far. I want him to be believed about this constitutional amendment.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the Chair and my distinguished colleague from Arizona. Mr. President, I just want to reemphasize the point made by the Senators from North Dakota and Wisconsin relative to a markup of the budget in the Budget Committee. Yesterday morning, Marjorie Williams had an intriguing op-ed piece in the Washington Post emphasizing that the key watchword of the Bush administration is ``transparency,'' ``transparency.'' Apparently, at every turn, the emphasis has been: We're transparent. We're transparent. We're open. This bemuses this particular Senator because the one thing they are absolutely nontransparent about is the budget. I have been trying, as a former chairman of the Budget Committee--and working here now for 25 years on this particular problem--to get the President's budget figures. We have had different people make some very interesting, amusing, and entertaining appearances on C-SPAN, but nobody has pointed out the actual outlays and the spending in the President's budget. We are on a collision course. What will happen come April 1st, under the budget rule, the majority leader can propose and lay down a budget, and start debating. If that is the game plan, we are headed now on a course of a train wreck. That is not going to fly. We do not have any idea of the figures. And to just vote willy-nilly as an exercise, to bypass all proceedings of the budget in the Budget Committee, just to get it to a conference, and then to mark up, for the first time, what the President wants, is really the process of arrogance. It is disturbing how little confidence the market has in us--in the Congress and the President--at this particular time. They see the Congress headed in one direction, and the President running around, continuing in his campaign, talking about the budget. He is out selling his so-called tax cut and budget everywhere but in the Budget Committee. We do not know exactly what he wants for defense, education, housing, and transportation. These are all important items to be discussed. At the beginning--weeks back--not having a real detailed budget, I thought we should take this year's budget--that we passed only in December--and just more or less have a budget freeze like you would have as a Governor. You would just take the President's budget and debate what cuts you had on there, and say, for any increases--the so- called pay-go rule--that you had to have offsets, and then hold up on the tax cuts until it became apparent whether it was going to be a soft or hard landing. I have to say in the same breath, this is a hard enough landing for this Senator. And rather than hold up, I have amended my initiative to put in an immediate economic stimulus package in the Finance Committee. But my budget is in the Budget Committee. I have written the chairman and asked him to please let me know when we are going to have a markup so we can discuss my budget, the President's budget, and any and all budgets. This is, as I say, the process of arrogance in which the debate and the consideration of the individual Senators and their opinions makes no difference in the committee. It is a ritual: Now that we have the bare majority, what we have to do is ram through--right now--what we want, irrespective of any debate or consideration. That is going to erode the confidence we have in the White House and the confidence the White House has in the Congress itself. The market sees this. I think we really are eroding confidence. You are going to see more downturns in the economy, and everything else, until we quit running around and come back home and start working together on the nation's problems. I see the distinguished President out talking about the Patients' Bill of Rights. That is not before the Congress right now. But we are out politicking on different campaign issues. But if we could show a willingness to work together, I think we would be much better off. I have not seen the likes of this in my years, and particularly with respect to the budget. The budget process was instituted as a result of some 13 appropriations bills, and we did not have one look-see at the Government spending in its entirety. So we put in these particular rules so that we could facilitate a complete and comprehensive debate and treatment of the Government's financial needs. Those rules are restrictions to help move it along--a mammoth Government budget of all departments--but they are being used to obscure any consideration rather than give comprehensive treatment and consideration. So instead of knowing what the President intends on education, housing, crime or with respect to the Justice Department, we just operate in the dark, in a casual fashion, and use the limited rules of the budget process--not for a comprehensive treatment and consideration--but, on the contrary, to obscure any consideration, any treatment, any markup, any understanding. That is fundamentally bad Government. I appreciate the distinguished leaders on the opposite side of the aisle giving me time to comment on this particular matter because I do have a budget. It is a good one. It really responds to our country's needs. But I have not been able to get a markup of my budget. We cannot consider the President's budget. We are going to take up the budget, willy-nilly, under a limited time--with the leadership relinquishing back most of its time and saying: All right, you Democrats, we have the votes. This is what we are going to pass. Go ahead and put your amendments on, and your time will run out by Wednesday and we will start the ``vote-a-rama'' around the clock. And the more amendments there are, the longer we will stay. We will stay here Thursday, we will stay here Friday, we will stay here Saturday--and we will stay here Palm Sunday--and just continue to vote if that is what you all want to do, making it appear that there is obstructionism on this side of the aisle, wherein the truth is, we have not had a chance to consider anything and to find out the merit or demerit of the bill or the feelings of the other side on anything. This is just bad congressional process legislating. I hope the chairman of the Budget Committee and the leadership on the other side of the aisle will say: All right, let's start Monday, meet in formal session and start marking up this budget. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, each day, many of our Nation's children face illnesses that require a doctor's office or hospital visit. This can be frightening for both the child and his or her family, and underscores the need to continue providing quality, caring pediatric health services. This week in Greenville, SC, The Children's Hospital of The Greenville Hospital System is celebrating Children and Healthcare Week with a number of valuable activities for health care professionals, parents and community partners. Among the events are continuing education classes for medical residents and support staff as well as an awards ceremony to honor local individuals who have dedicated their lives to pediatric care. Children and Healthcare Week highlights educational programming to increase public, parental and professional knowledge of the improvements that can be made in pediatric health care. In particular, it stresses new ways to meet the emotional and developmental needs of children in health care settings. Lack of quality health care should never be an impediment to the long-term success of our nation's children and I commend Greenville's dedication to Children and Healthcare Week.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I recently introduced, S. Con. Res. 20, a one-year budget proposal which included instructions for a tax cut if either: (1) a true surplus materializes, or (2) we enter a recession. It is now apparent the economy is on a downturn and there is no good reason to await action. That is why I am introducing a one-year tax cut of approximately $95 billion to stimulate the economy. Any tax cut designed for economic stimulus should be about one percent of GDP. The tax cut will reduce income taxes and payroll taxes as follows: The 15 percent tax rate will be reduced to 10 percent for the following brackets: $0-20,000 for couples; $0-16,000 for heads of households; $0-10,000 for singles or married filing separately. The 25 million taxpayers who pay payroll taxes but do not qualify for income tax cuts will receive up to $500 in payroll tax cuts. This plan reaches approximately 120 million taxpayers, thus providing relief to more people than any other proposal to date. If passed, this proposal will provide immediate relief by sending a check to these 120 million taxpayers by July 1, 2001.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I recently introduced, S. Con. Res. 20, a one-year budget proposal which included instructions for a tax cut if either: (1) a true surplus materializes, or (2) we enter a recession. It is now apparent the economy is on a downturn and there is no good reason to await action. That is why I am introducing a one-year tax cut of approximately $95 billion to stimulate the economy. Any tax cut designed for economic stimulus should be about one percent of GDP. The tax cut will reduce income taxes and payroll taxes as follows: The 15 percent tax rate will be reduced to 10 percent for the following brackets: $0-20,000 for couples; $0-16,000 for heads of households; $0-10,000 for singles or married filing separately. The 25 million taxpayers who pay payroll taxes but do not qualify for income tax cuts will receive up to $500 in payroll tax cuts. This plan reaches approximately 120 million taxpayers, thus providing relief to more people than any other proposal to date. If passed, this proposal will provide immediate relief by sending a check to these 120 million taxpayers by July 1, 2001.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. The only objection I have to it--and I commend them for their leadership--is they say an immediate moderate tax cut is justified. You see, therein is the difference with this particular Senator and the ``wag.'' Surpluses, surpluses, surpluses--everywhere men cry surpluses. But there is no surplus. Mind you me, I have been elected seven times to the Senate, and to paraphrase our wonderful leader, President Richard Nixon, I am not a nut. I believe in tax cuts, too--if you have some taxes to cut. So let's see where the taxes are to cut. They say the so-called surpluses belong to the people, but I find nothing but indebtedness belonging to the people. For example, we have gone, in the past 20 years, from a creditor nation to the largest debtor nation in history--some $2 trillion. We actually have a current account deficit of $439 billion, or more, and going up. There is a deficit in the balance of trade up, up, and away, where we used to have a plus balance of trade. With respect to surpluses, actually, we owe Social Security some $1.164 trillion Medicare accounts are $238 billion in the red. Military retirement is $156 billion in the red. Civilian retirement is $544 billion in the red. Unemployment compensation is $92 billion in the red. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this table of Congressional Budget Office figures be printed in the Record at this particular point.

Mr. HOLLINGS. This shows the total sum of all trust funds--not just Social Security, but all the trust funds--including black lung, nuclear and otherwise. So the total amount that we now owe in Government accounts--since they want to split it--is $2.3 trillion. Let me go right to that particular point: $2.3 trillion, as compared to the $3.4 trillion they call public debt. You see, that is where Mr. Greenspan and others start the monkey business of dividing the debt that belongs to us all. We are the Government, and the public debt and the Government debt, or the intergovernmental accounts, are all our indebtedness. It is $5.7 trillion. Now that Government debt has not gone down. We ended the last fiscal year $23 billion in debt. The national debt went up some $23 billion. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record page 20 of the Treasurer's report showing the difference in how it increased.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I had a lockbox amendment at the desk, but I am not calling it up at this time. In the limited time granted me, I want to support the Conrad amendment, which will be introduced later, having to do with procedure. I didn't want to bring about any confusion because I think the Conrad amendment is a sound one. I know that the particular amendment I have at the desk was designed by the Administrator of Social Security. It is a true lockbox. But we have a more serious problem here. There isn't any question that with the Concord Coalition coming out yesterday afternoon with a joint statement by Warren Rudman, Sam Nunn, Peter Peterson, Robert Rubin, and Paul Volcker, we are just about ready to break the discipline with respect to paying down the debt. They strongly point out the reasons we should continue the discipline. I ask unanimous consent that their particular summary be printed in the Record at this point.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, we not only ended the fiscal year with a $23 billion deficit, but look at the debt to the penny, which I printed just a half hour ago from the U.S. Treasury Web site, and you will see that we continue to run deficits. U.S. Treasury Secretary O'Neill, when I had him at the hearing, said, ``That is your paper, Senator.'' I said, ``No, this is your paper, Secretary O'Neill.'' The public debt numbers found on-line show that the debt has increased from $5.674 trillion at the end of September last year--at the beginning of this fiscal year, 2001--to $5.747 trillion. So the debt has gone up $73 billion. Let me emphasize the split in the debt. The Treasury Secretary says who owes the public debt. He has the public debt held by the public, and he has another listing of intergovernmental holdings. In January, for the years preceding--Mr. President, that used to be Government debt. Now they are trying to change the phraseology so you are misled-- intergovernmental holdings. That is an indebtedness. The public debt has gone up $21 billion. Did you hear that? Mr. Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, is running around saying, ``My problem is we are going to pay down too much debt,'' when it has gone up in the beginning of the fiscal year some $21 billion. It is $3.4 trillion, going down $21 billion. Go down $100 billion, go down $200 billion, go down $300 billion, $400 billion, and you still have $3 trillion to pay off. Don't worry about paying down too much debt. It was an absolute charade to see the Chairman of the Federal Reserve come to the Congress with that nonsense about ``we have too much debt to pay down.'' I mean, we are paying down too much debt and we are going to have to pay a penalty on our fiscal holdings. With respect to the intergovernmental holdings, or public debt, it is $52 billion. So as of this morning, a half hour ago, the Secretary of the Treasury reports that the debt has gone up $73 billion. It is not going down. That is the problem with the Concord Coalition. I ask unanimous consent that these documents be printed in the Record at this point.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, what is happening? Well, we got on course. Reaganomics II. We know what Reaganomics I did. I notice my friend, the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Specter, called it in the interviews over the weekend Kemp-Roth. He didn't want to hurt President Reagan's feelings. I don't either, but President Reagan adopted this idea of ``starve the beast.'' All we have to do is cut the revenues. The money belongs to the people, and the people know how best to spend their money, and we will have prosperity galore. What happened? Well, President Lyndon Johnson last balanced the budget. During 200 years of history, in the course of all the wars, we had accumulated less than a trillion dollars in debt. But when President Reagan came in with Reaganomics, that less than a trillion dollars in debt went up to $4 trillion and is now up to $5.7 trillion. What happens? I speak now to my colleagues because this is the greatest waste. I served on the Grace Commission to abolish waste, fraud, and abuse. The greatest waste ever proposed or propounded in the history of Government is the interest costs, the carrying charges on the national debt. When President Johnson balanced the budget and for the 200 years of history, the interest cost on the debt was only $16 billion. Now it has gone up to $365 billion and is projected by CBO to go to $371 billion. The first thing the Government did this morning at 8 o'clock was go down to the bank, borrow $1 billion and add it to the debt. Tomorrow we are going to do the same thing. On Saturday do you think the banks are closed? No. We are going to borrow another $1 billion on Saturday, and on Sunday and on Christmas Day. Each and every day, we are going to borrow $1 billion for nothing--$365 billion. The distinguished Presiding Officer could buy all sorts of things with this money. We could get an energy policy, a forestry policy, a research policy. We could pay for education. We could almost double everything that anybody wanted. This $365 billion amount is bigger than the national defense. National defense is supposed to go from $305 billion to $310 billion. We are paying out more just in carrying charges, waste, and nobody seems to care. The point is, when you are in a deficit and debt position, you cannot cut taxes without increasing taxes. That is exactly where we are. The so-called tax cut that President Bush is insisting upon is a tax cut that wore no clothes. He is running all around the country. Talk of a tax cut started back in September and October, when he was ascending in the polls. Then the market started to decline. In November, the distinguished Mr. Cheney said it looked like a recession. They insisted on the tax cut in December, January, and February. Can you imagine the President having to go out and sell a tax cut? People ought to sober up on that particular point. Do you have to sell a tax cut? What is the market saying? The market is saying: Look, with all this indebtedness, awash in debt, a devalued dollar, they are not going to, by gosh, buy our instruments, our bonds, they are not going to continue to finance our debt, and they are going to have to raise the interest rates. That is exactly what happened in Reaganomics I, and we have Reaganomics II on course. There is no education in the second kick of a mule. We should all like the Concord Coalition: Pay down the debt; enforce the discipline; quit running around bribing, if you please, the people with their own money. It is a sordid trick. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves. Responsible Congressmen and Senators ought to tell the truth. We have gone bilingual when it comes to the budget. The second language is truth. We are running around here saying surplus, surplus, surplus everywhere, and there is no surplus. Even the President says there is no surplus. I hold in my hand President Bush's document that he just submitted. On page 201, you can see the debt this year: $5.637 trillion. He projects that the national debt will go to $7.159 trillion--not a surplus. This is President Bush. Why don't they ask him: Mr. President, you say ``surplus,'' but your own budget shows the debt increasing. I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record page 201.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, there it is. We have been engaged in the most sordid activity one can possibly imagine with these 10-year budgets. I remember when I was chairman of the Budget Committee in 1979 and 1980, we had a 1-year budget. The country sustained, survived, succeeded 200 years of history on 1-year budgets. If you were a Governor of a State and you submitted a 10-year budget, Moody's and Standard & Poor's would immediately lift your credit rating. But wait a minute, the best campaign finance trick is to use the Government's budget to get ourselves reelected, running around and promising visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads: Give the money back; the people know how to spend their money. Of course, every morning we are borrowing $1 billion, and they say give it back to the people, but we are increasing the debt and increasing the waste. We run amok with these 10-year budgets, and we ought to go back to 1-year budgets. Let's take the budget we passed in December, a few months ago, and debate all the cuts and vote on them. With respect to the increase, we should have the pay-go rule. You have to have an offset and withhold, not abolish. If President Bush and this Government has a surplus by the end of this fiscal year, I will vote for President George W. Bush's tax cut. I will vote for it--I have to say that publicly--if we have a surplus. But as long as we continue to increase the debt, let's hold up and find out. As much as I hate to, I think we might have to go with a capital gains tax cut, instead of an across-the-board tax cut, to really get the market going. An across-the-board cut is not going to infuse consumer confidence. If the President came back here today--that is our problem. These Presidents continue to run for office, they continue to work at keeping the job rather than doing the job. If he would only come back and tend to the real problems of the country and quit running all over the place trying to sell a tax cut, I think the market would start back up. It is not lack of consumer confidence in the economy, it is citizens' lack of confidence in their Government. When they see us play this sordid game of 10-year budgets, calling deficits and debt surpluses and sending the money back with a childish cause that people are going out and spending their money best and that kind of nonsense, that is what is happening to the stock market. They can see we are going to an inflated economy, the results we had from Reaganomics I. We are going to have Reaganomics II, and we are going to really be in economic trouble. The ox is in the ditch. We have everyone running around talking about surpluses and 10-year budgets where everybody is right and everybody is wrong. If we can just hold the line and get back to that 8-year record of paying down the debt and fiscal discipline, then the people will begin to appreciate this Congress at the market level. Right now, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves with this sordid game of again and again calling deficits and debt surpluses in order to buy the people's vote. That is all we are doing. We will, with April 15, have a large influx of revenues, and some debt will be paid down, but they will never get to paying down $3.4 trillion in the Presiding Officer's time and in my time. Do not worry about paying down the public debt. Let us worry about the increase of the overall national debt and go back to the Concord Coalition's recommendation of fiscal discipline. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, rural South Carolina faces many diverse challenges, challenges that never intimidated Bernie Wright. Mr. Wright has recently left his post as State Director of the Farmers Home Administration and Rural Development after eight years, capping off an impressive 30 years of service with the USDA. Throughout his tenure as director, Mr. Wright remained committed to invigorating rural economies and improving the lives of citizens living and working in rural communities. He helped ensure that our State's small towns have the infrastructure to accomplish big things. Many people, including myself, have had the distinct pleasure of working with Bernie Wright and I am certain we will continue to reap the benefits of his accomplishments for years to come.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, Laurie Lawson comes from a long line of farmers in Darlington, SC, and he drew upon that experience as our State's executive director of the Farm Service Agency. After 8 years at the helm, he has stepped down. Farmers knew that Mr. Lawson would respond to their needs with knowledge and compassion and work effectively to open lines of communication between the farming community and Federal agencies. Whatever the matter at hand--whether it was drought relief or the tobacco settlement--Laurie Lawson played an important role on behalf of South Carolina farmers. I know he is looking forward to spending more time with his grandchildren and keeping up with his beloved Clemson Tigers. However, my staff and I will greatly miss his expertise on agricultural issues and feel honored to have worked with such a dedicated public servant.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, it is an honor for me to recognize Rene Josey, who recently stepped down as U.S. Attorney for the District of South Carolina after five years. Mr. Josey brought 10 years of experience practicing law to the job and built a reputation for being more than just an administrator. He took an active role during his tenure as district attorney, prosecuting 13 criminal cases and earning the genuine respect of his staff and fellow attorneys. Although he raised his profile at the office, he remained an unassuming public servant and focused his energy on the tasks at hand. His accomplishments are numerous, not the least of which include the group of experienced litigators he brought on board who have strengthened our state's legal system. Rene Josey has returned to private practice with Turner, Padgett, Graham & Laney, a Columbia, South Carolina law firm with offices in his hometown of Florence and in Charleston. It has been a pleasure for both me and my staff to work with a talented individual like Rene and we wish him all the best as he continues his successful career.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise to bring to your attention an issue of great national concern. We all remember the great debate that this chamber had last year during reauthorization of the federal highway bill, TEA-21. We all negotiated to get more funds for our states because we know that more investment in our highways means better, safer, and more efficient transportation for those who reply on roads for making deliveries, going to work or school, or just doing the grocery shopping. Transportation is the linchpin for economic development, and those states that have good, efficient transportation systems attract business development, ultimately raising standards of living. However, I think that we may have gone too far in authorizing states additional means to raise revenue for highway improvements. These means to raise revenue are not productive and hurt our system of transportation. Specifically, I am concerned that states have too much flexibility to establish tolls on our Interstate highway system. For many states, the large increases in TEA-21 funding have satisfied the need to invest in infrastructure. Other states have found that they need to raise more money, and so they have raised their state fuel taxes or taken other actions to raise the needed revenue. These increases may be difficult to implement politically, because frankly most people don't support any tax increase. However, I believe that highway tolls are a non- productive and overly intrusive means of raising revenue causing more harm to commerce than can be justified. Congress, mistakenly in my opinion, increased the authority of states to put tolls on their Interstate highway in TEA-21. I am introducing the interstate Tolls Relief Act of 2001 to restrict Interstate toll authority. The debate over highway tolls goes back to the genesis of our Republic, and contributed to our movement away from the Articles of Confederation to a more uniform system of governance under the U.S. Constitution. Toll roads were the bane of commerce, in the early years of the Republic, as each state would attempt to toll the interstate traveling public to finance state public improvements. Ultimately, frustration with delay and uneven costs helped contribute to the adoption of Commerce Clause powers to help facilitate interstate and foreign trade. Those same concerns hold true today, and I think that we in Congress must take a national perspective and promote interstate commerce. I think that if one were to ask the citizens of the United States about tolls, they would ultimately conclude that Interstate tolls would reduce by efficiency of our Interstate highways, increase shipping costs, and make interstate travel more expensive and less convenient. Not to mention the safety problems associated with erecting toll booths and operating them to collect revenues. Now, I recognize that tolls under certain circumstances may be a good idea, and my bill does not prevent states from tolling non-Interstate highways. My bill also does not affect tolls on highways where they are already in use, and states will continue to be able to rely on existing tolls for revenues. Furthermore, my bill recognizes that when funds must be found for a major Interstate bridge or tunnel project, states may have no other option but to use tolls to finance the project. They may continue to do so under my bill. I believe this consistent with the original intent of authority granted for Interstate tolls. What my bill does is to prevent the proliferation of Interstate tolls, and restrict tolling authority for major bridges and tunnels. This bill is essential if we are to continue to have an Interstate Highway System that is safe and facilitates the efficient movement of Interstate commerce and personal travel. I urge the support of my colleagues. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise to bring to your attention an issue of great national concern. We all remember the great debate that this chamber had last year during reauthorization of the federal highway bill, TEA-21. We all negotiated to get more funds for our states because we know that more investment in our highways means better, safer, and more efficient transportation for those who reply on roads for making deliveries, going to work or school, or just doing the grocery shopping. Transportation is the linchpin for economic development, and those states that have good, efficient transportation systems attract business development, ultimately raising standards of living. However, I think that we may have gone too far in authorizing states additional means to raise revenue for highway improvements. These means to raise revenue are not productive and hurt our system of transportation. Specifically, I am concerned that states have too much flexibility to establish tolls on our Interstate highway system. For many states, the large increases in TEA-21 funding have satisfied the need to invest in infrastructure. Other states have found that they need to raise more money, and so they have raised their state fuel taxes or taken other actions to raise the needed revenue. These increases may be difficult to implement politically, because frankly most people don't support any tax increase. However, I believe that highway tolls are a non- productive and overly intrusive means of raising revenue causing more harm to commerce than can be justified. Congress, mistakenly in my opinion, increased the authority of states to put tolls on their Interstate highway in TEA-21. I am introducing the interstate Tolls Relief Act of 2001 to restrict Interstate toll authority. The debate over highway tolls goes back to the genesis of our Republic, and contributed to our movement away from the Articles of Confederation to a more uniform system of governance under the U.S. Constitution. Toll roads were the bane of commerce, in the early years of the Republic, as each state would attempt to toll the interstate traveling public to finance state public improvements. Ultimately, frustration with delay and uneven costs helped contribute to the adoption of Commerce Clause powers to help facilitate interstate and foreign trade. Those same concerns hold true today, and I think that we in Congress must take a national perspective and promote interstate commerce. I think that if one were to ask the citizens of the United States about tolls, they would ultimately conclude that Interstate tolls would reduce by efficiency of our Interstate highways, increase shipping costs, and make interstate travel more expensive and less convenient. Not to mention the safety problems associated with erecting toll booths and operating them to collect revenues. Now, I recognize that tolls under certain circumstances may be a good idea, and my bill does not prevent states from tolling non-Interstate highways. My bill also does not affect tolls on highways where they are already in use, and states will continue to be able to rely on existing tolls for revenues. Furthermore, my bill recognizes that when funds must be found for a major Interstate bridge or tunnel project, states may have no other option but to use tolls to finance the project. They may continue to do so under my bill. I believe this consistent with the original intent of authority granted for Interstate tolls. What my bill does is to prevent the proliferation of Interstate tolls, and restrict tolling authority for major bridges and tunnels. This bill is essential if we are to continue to have an Interstate Highway System that is safe and facilitates the efficient movement of Interstate commerce and personal travel. I urge the support of my colleagues. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, for the past 33 years, Israel Brooks has done all citizens of South Carolina a great favor by working in law enforcement. That is why it is with a degree of sadness that I note his departure from the post of U.S. Marshal for South Carolina after seven years of service. Israel Brooks' career is a testament to the caliber of leadership that his colleagues have learned to expect from him. A native of Newberry, SC, he served for four years in the U.S. Marine Corps where he rose to the rank of sergeant and platoon leader. Then, in 1967, he became South Carolina's first African- American highway patrolman. After a five-year stint as an instructor at the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy, he continued to climb the ranks of the highway patrol, serving as Major for four years until taking the marshal's post in 1994. Recently, Marshal Brooks was honored here in Washington for his lifelong commitment to fostering equal opportunities in the workplace as a recipient of the Equal Employment Opportunity Award. He is most deserving of this and the many other accolades that he has received throughout his distinguished career. I am confident that Israel Brooks is one of the finest law enforcement officers in the modern history of South Carolina and my staff and I will miss working with him.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, yesterday I introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution 20, a budget resolution for fiscal year 2002 that stays the course with an emphasis on paying down the national debt. The resolution creates two reserve funds for tax reduction, one if the CBO reports the economy is in a recession and the other if CBO determines we have a true surplus. The resolution does not contain any instructions to committees with regard to reconciliation. There has been a great deal of speculation, fueled by statements made by the Senate Republican Leadership, that the reconciliation process established in the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, would be used to enact the massive $1.6 trillion tax cut proposed by the President. This is an abuse of the budget process and contrary to the original purpose of the Act which was to establish fiscal discipline within the Congress when it made decisions regarding spending and tax matters. I am the only original member of the Senate Budget Committee and have served on the Committee since its inception in 1974. In fact, I chaired the Senate Budget Committee in 1980 and managed the first reconciliation bill with Senator Domenici, then the ranking minority member. It disturbs me to see how the reconciliation process, designed to reduce the debt, is now being used to rush a huge tax cut through the Congress with limited debate and little if any opportunity to amend. An examination of the legislative history surrounding passage of the 1974 Act makes it clear that the new reconciliation process was intended to expedite consideration of legislation that only reduced spending or increased revenues in order to eliminate annual budget deficits. This view was supported by over two decades of practice in which Congress used the Act to improve the fiscal health of the federal budget. If Congress insists on enacting a massive tax cut, it should consider that bill in the normal course, not through the reconciliation process which makes a mockery of the Congressional Budget Act and its intended purpose. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a legislative history of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and a history of the use of the Senate reconciliation process.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an article I wrote entitled ``Reaganomics II'' be printed in the Record. This article provides an honest budgetary assessment and thereby makes the argument for why a one year budget is needed. Reaganomics II, a tax cut of $1.6 trillion, is steamrolling through the Congress. Reaganomics I, the tax cut of $750 billion, gave us the biggest waste in history! The debt soared from less than $1 trillion to $4 trillion, now $5.7 trillion, with interest costs of $365 billion annually. In the last ten years we have wasted $3.4 trillion on interest costs and we continue to spend each day, every day, $1 billion for nothing. But President Bush and the Republican Congress charge on wailing about trillions of dollars in surplus, joined by the free press with USA Today's headline of February 22, ``Government Remains Awash In Money''. Awash in money? Surplus? Nowhere to be found. Ever since President Lyndon Johnson balanced the budget in 1969 we have ended each year with a deficit. Fiscal year 2000 ended in deficit, and the Secretary of the Treasury has just reported the debt has already increased this fiscal year another $52 billion. President Bush's budget, just submitted, shows the debt increasing in the next 10 years from $5.637 trillion to $7.159 trillion. No surplus. The U.S. economy is hemorrhaging with a current account deficit of $439 billion and the government is awash in red ink. The Social Security account at this moment is in the red $1 trillion. The Medicare account is in the red $238 billion. We owe Military Retirement $156 billion. We owe Civil Service Retirement $544 billion. The Unemployment Compensation fund is $92 billion in the red. Yet the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, appears before Congress stating, ``We are running out of debt to retire.'' Ridiculous. Greenspan justifies talk of ``surplus'' by dividing the national debt in two: debt borrowed from government accounts such as Social Security, Medicare, Military Retirement, etc.; and debt owed the public by borrowing in the open market. The term ``public debt'' infers that is all the government owes. The government owes both public and government debt. Ignoring the overall national debt, Greenspan testifies only about public debt. He fears the public debt will be paid off and the investment of ``surpluses'' will become a political football. Last year when Greenspan called for paying down the debt, the public debt was $3.4 trillion. Now it has only been paid down $13 billion and he calls for a tax cut. And the reduction of $13 billion is achieved by transferring $13 billion of public debt to the government debt. It is like paying off your Visa with your MasterCard. You still owe the money. The national debt continues to increase, not be ``paid down''. No surplus. Dividing the national debt is a fraud. Worse, ten-year economic projections, or budgets, give President Bush running room for a $1.6 trillion tax cut and a $25 billion increase in spending--Reaganomics II! The President's plan is contingent upon spending cuts that he knows Congress will reject, and the Democratic alternative of a $900 billion tax cut is no more than Reaganomics Lite. Under each plan, deficits, on the decline for the past eight years, will increase. The national debt and interest costs will soar, the dollar weakened. To meet the demand for higher yields to offset the decline in the dollar, Greenspan will have to raise interest rates which will guarantee a hard landing. There is no education in the second kick of a mule. The way to stop Reaganomics II is with a one-year budget. We survived 200 years with one year budgets. First, start with this year's budget for next year. Freeze it. Debate and vote on any proposed cuts and require that amendments for prescription drugs and health care be accompanied by an offset. Depending on the economy, delay all tax cut proposals until later this year or this time next year when we learn whether it's a soft landing or a hard landing. Then we can act responsibly.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the time has come for the Congress to really understand what is going on in the airline industry. It is an industry that no longer competes. Passengers no longer matter. We are like cattle in a stockade. Today, I am introducing legislation to restore the public's interest in our aviation system, to reclaim it from the carriers. Senator McCain joins me in sponsoring this bill. We have spent countless hearings listening to various airline executives, government officials and expert witness talk about the problems confronting the traveling public. it is time we put all of that information and knowledge together to benefit the traveling public. Let's start with the hubs. There are twenty major airports, essential facilities, where 1 carrier has more than fifty percent of the total enplaned passengers. Study after study has told us, warned us, that concentrated hubs lead to higher fares, particularly for markets to those hubs with no competition. Average fares are higher by 41 percent according to DOT, and even higher for smaller, shorter haul markets, by as much as 54 percent. DOT estimates that for only 10 of the hubs, 24.7 million people are overcharged, and another 25 to 50 million choose not to fly because of high fares. We have got to take a can opener and pry open the lids to the hubs, for without competition, whatever benefits deregulation has brought, will quickly fade away. Our legislation will ensure that other air carriers have the ability to compete, the ability to provide people with options, and the ability to threaten to serve every market out of the dominated hubs. Gates, facilities and other assets will need to be provided where they are unavailable, or where competition dictates a need for such facilities. Dominant air carriers have relied upon Federal dollars to expand these facilities, and they have taken advantage of those monies by establishing unregulated local monopolies. It is time to use the power and leverage of the Federal government to restore a balance to the marketplace. Right now, the air carriers are attempting to dictate what the industry will look like. If they are successful, all of the concerns raised by countless studies, will not only be realized, but they will be exacerbated. The public's needs, the public's convenience, are something that must be first and foremost as we watch this industry evolve. Airline deregulation forced the carriers to compete on price for a while, but not on service. Congress had to threaten legislation in 1999 before the airlines even began to even understand the depth of consumer anger towards the airlines. Today though, they no longer compete on price. Instead, they seek to acquire one another to create massive systems, perhaps only three will survive, leaving us all far worse tomorrow than we are today. And clearly today, we are not getting what is needed. What are the facts: United wants to buy US Airways, and create DC Air. American want to buy TWA, a failing company with a hub in St. Louis, and then American wants to buy a part of US Airways. Continental and Delta have a 25 year marketing relations, and Delta, Continental and Northwest are all eying other deals. Right now there are 20 major cities where one carrier effectively controls airline service. Department of Transportation, General Accounting Office, National Research Council and others have all documented abuses, high fares, market dominance, hoarding of facilities at airports so other carriers can not enter, and let's not forget poor service. It must stop. It is not enough for the antitrust laws to look at each transaction in a vacuum. The public's interest, its needs, and its convenience must be reasserted. DOT, in its January 2001 study, made three key observations: The facts are clear. Without the presence of effective price competition, network carriers charge much higher prices and curtail capacity available to price sensitive passengers at the hubs. . . . With effective price competition, consumers benefit from both better service and lower fares, citing Atlanta and Salt Lake City as examples where a low cost carrier is able to provide competition to a dominant hub carrier. The key to eliminating market power and fare premiums is to encourage entry into as many uncontested markets as possible. . . . barriers to entry at dominated hubs are most difficult to surmount considering the operational and marketing leverage a network carrier has in it hub markets. In its 1999 study, the Department stated most clearly what we are trying to achieve: Moreover, unless there is reasonable likelihood that a new entrant's short term and long term needs for gates and other facilities will be met, it may simply decide not to serve a community.--FAA/OST Task Force Study, October 1999, at page iii. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the time has come for the Congress to really understand what is going on in the airline industry. It is an industry that no longer competes. Passengers no longer matter. We are like cattle in a stockade. Today, I am introducing legislation to restore the public's interest in our aviation system, to reclaim it from the carriers. Senator McCain joins me in sponsoring this bill. We have spent countless hearings listening to various airline executives, government officials and expert witness talk about the problems confronting the traveling public. it is time we put all of that information and knowledge together to benefit the traveling public. Let's start with the hubs. There are twenty major airports, essential facilities, where 1 carrier has more than fifty percent of the total enplaned passengers. Study after study has told us, warned us, that concentrated hubs lead to higher fares, particularly for markets to those hubs with no competition. Average fares are higher by 41 percent according to DOT, and even higher for smaller, shorter haul markets, by as much as 54 percent. DOT estimates that for only 10 of the hubs, 24.7 million people are overcharged, and another 25 to 50 million choose not to fly because of high fares. We have got to take a can opener and pry open the lids to the hubs, for without competition, whatever benefits deregulation has brought, will quickly fade away. Our legislation will ensure that other air carriers have the ability to compete, the ability to provide people with options, and the ability to threaten to serve every market out of the dominated hubs. Gates, facilities and other assets will need to be provided where they are unavailable, or where competition dictates a need for such facilities. Dominant air carriers have relied upon Federal dollars to expand these facilities, and they have taken advantage of those monies by establishing unregulated local monopolies. It is time to use the power and leverage of the Federal government to restore a balance to the marketplace. Right now, the air carriers are attempting to dictate what the industry will look like. If they are successful, all of the concerns raised by countless studies, will not only be realized, but they will be exacerbated. The public's needs, the public's convenience, are something that must be first and foremost as we watch this industry evolve. Airline deregulation forced the carriers to compete on price for a while, but not on service. Congress had to threaten legislation in 1999 before the airlines even began to even understand the depth of consumer anger towards the airlines. Today though, they no longer compete on price. Instead, they seek to acquire one another to create massive systems, perhaps only three will survive, leaving us all far worse tomorrow than we are today. And clearly today, we are not getting what is needed. What are the facts: United wants to buy US Airways, and create DC Air. American want to buy TWA, a failing company with a hub in St. Louis, and then American wants to buy a part of US Airways. Continental and Delta have a 25 year marketing relations, and Delta, Continental and Northwest are all eying other deals. Right now there are 20 major cities where one carrier effectively controls airline service. Department of Transportation, General Accounting Office, National Research Council and others have all documented abuses, high fares, market dominance, hoarding of facilities at airports so other carriers can not enter, and let's not forget poor service. It must stop. It is not enough for the antitrust laws to look at each transaction in a vacuum. The public's interest, its needs, and its convenience must be reasserted. DOT, in its January 2001 study, made three key observations: The facts are clear. Without the presence of effective price competition, network carriers charge much higher prices and curtail capacity available to price sensitive passengers at the hubs. . . . With effective price competition, consumers benefit from both better service and lower fares, citing Atlanta and Salt Lake City as examples where a low cost carrier is able to provide competition to a dominant hub carrier. The key to eliminating market power and fare premiums is to encourage entry into as many uncontested markets as possible. . . . barriers to entry at dominated hubs are most difficult to surmount considering the operational and marketing leverage a network carrier has in it hub markets. In its 1999 study, the Department stated most clearly what we are trying to achieve: Moreover, unless there is reasonable likelihood that a new entrant's short term and long term needs for gates and other facilities will be met, it may simply decide not to serve a community.--FAA/OST Task Force Study, October 1999, at page iii. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Stevens, Senator Hutchison of Texas, Senator Inouye, Senator Kohl, Senator Dorgan, and myself, I send to the desk a bill, the Children's Protection From Violent Programming Act. Mr. President, it has been a 50-year learning process. I am reminded of Peter, Paul, and Mary, singing that song about, ``Where have all the flowers gone? When will they ever learn?'' The truth of the matter is that we have learned. We have had hearings starting back in the early 1950s with Senator Kefauver. We have had Surgeon General reports, American Medical Association reports, American Psychological Association reports, National Cable Television Association reports, Kaiser Family Foundation reports--reports, reports, reports, again, again, and again; and only this yet to be introduced ``Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General,'' which I quote, among other findings, from page 93: Research to date justifies sustained efforts to curb the adverse effects of media violence on youth. We have had Attorney General Janet Reno, along with other legal scholars, attest to the constitutionality of the safe harbor approach. The truth of the matter is that everybody is talking about bipartisanship. We have had it with respect to TV violence and its effect on children. In the last three Congresses, safe harbor has been reported out of committee almost unanimously, with only one dissenting vote in each Congress, 16-1, 19-1, 17-1, after a series of hearings in the Commerce Committee. Then it gets to the full Senate's calendar and it stops. On Thursday, January 25, a thirteen year old boy was sentenced to life in prison for the killing of a six year old family friend. Why did he do it? To imitate pro wrestling he had watched on television. In this instance, the defendant punched, kicked, and threw a 48 pound little girl against a metal staircase after asking her ``Do you want to play wrestling?'' His defense attorney stated: ``He wanted to emulate them. . . . Like Batman and Superman, they were his heroes.'' He added, that the defendant ``didn't understand that he could hurt the 48-pound girl if he punched her and threw her because he had seen pro wrestlers do that hundreds of times without injuring each other.'' Apparently, the death was one of at least four cases in 1999 in which pro wrestling inspired the killing of one child by another. The day after this sentencing, another thirteen year old boy suffered second and third degree burns when he tried to imitate an MTV personality who set himself on fire as part of the show ``Jackass,'' which airs on that music network. The injured teen, who was from Torrington, CT, allowed his friend to douse his pants and shoes with gasoline and then light them on fire mistakenly assuming that he would not be injured. His burns, and required hospitalization tell another tale. Mr. President, enough is enough. And yet, we can never bring ourselves to act. Remember, it was over three years ago, in Paducah, Kentucky, when a fourteen year old savagely murdered three teenage girls and shot five others who had just completed their morning prayer meeting at school. Prosecutors alleged the defendant plotted his killings after watching ``The Basketball Diaries,'' a movie in which a tormented student dreams of brutally slaying his tormentors in the classroom. In the scene in which the killings take place, popular rock music resonates in the background and students high-five each other and laugh while their friend guns down multiple students and the classroom teacher. And we all are familiar with the incident in which a young boy burned down his home, thereby killing his sister, while imitating the ritualistic pyromaniac practices that were glorified on the popular cartoon show ``Beavis and Butthead.'' A few years before that, in 1991, a thirteen year old boy in Jerusalem accidentally killed himself when he imitated a TV hanging he had witnessed on one of his favorite action-adventure programs. His friends discovered him dead, hanging from the stairway bannister in his home. How much copycat violence will it take? How many violent acts have to be committed, how much vandalism, destruction, injury, and death has to occur, before we act here in Congress? As we have seen in Littleton, Colorado, and in Paducah, Kentucky, violence in our culture is begetting violence by our youths. Violence is everywhere, it is readily accessible, and it is a source of corporate profits. As a Washington Post article entitled ``When Death Imitates Art'' stated two years ago--``For young people, the culture at large is bathed in blood and violence . . . where the more extreme the message, the more over the top gruesomeness, the better.'' This assessment is based on established evidence and facts. We know from the Congressional Research Service that before completing elementary school, the average child will witness 8,000 murders and 100,000 other acts of violence on television alone. By the time he or she graduates from high school, the exposure will rise to 40,000 televised murders. Often accompanied by popular music, portrayed in a glorified light, and delivered without reference to the negative consequences of such dire actions, television violence has a direct, adverse impact on our children. The legislation I offer today provides an opportunity for us to act responsibly to lessen that impact, by limiting our children's exposure to the poisonous effects of televised, glorified, violence. We need to take advantage of that opportunity. The purveyors of violence in corporate America will no doubt criticize this effort and seek the mantle of the First Amendment while espousing the virtue of self- regulation. What they won't say is that U.S. law already restricts the broadcasting of indecent programming on television, a restriction the federal courts have upheld as consistent with the First Amendment. A similar approach for violence is also likely to be upheld, as has been demonstrated in previous Congresses through the hearing testimony of the U.S. Attorney General, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, and numerous constitutional scholars. As for self- regulation, it has been proven unequivocally that such an approach will never work so long as it is pitted against the allure of the almighty dollar. Mr. President, this is an issue about accountability and responsibility. Those responsible for supplying and distributing video programming have been entrusted with public resources--through grants of government spectrum and public rights of way--that allow them to deliver their programming to America's children. Notwithstanding the responsibility that accompanies the grant of this public trust, we know from the studies that there is more violence on television during prime time, during ``sweeps weeks'' and even on weekend afternoons. Why? Because violence sells and money talks. And no amount of self- regulation, and no number of antitrust exemptions is going to change that profit incentive. Moreover, we know that no issue is more developed, more researched, and more debated than this one. Allow me to lay out the history. We were in the last days of the Truman Administration when a House Subcommittee first looked at the issue of violence on radio and television. The Senate Judiciary Committee and Senator Estes Kefauver began to examine media and youth violence in hearings in 1954 and the Senate Commerce Committee began hearings in 1960. In the Senate Commerce Committee alone we have held twenty two hearings on the issue of media violence. In 1972, the Surgeon General's report concluded that there is a causal link between viewing violence as a child and subsequent violent or aggressive behavior. In 1982, the National Institute of Mental Health, after ten years of research, found that ``the consensus among most of the research community is that violence on television does lead to aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch the programs.'' Congress finally responded to this overwhelming evidence in 1990, when we granted the industry an antitrust exemption to meet and develop ways to reduce violence on television. In response to that legislation, the TV networks issued standards for the depiction of violence on broadcast television. Let me quote from those standards: All depictions of violence should be relevant and necessary to the development of character, or to the advancement of theme or plot. Gratuitous or excessive depictions of violence, (or redundant violence shown solely for its own sake), are not acceptable. Programs should not depict violence as glamorous, nor as an acceptable solution to human conflict. . . . Realistic depictions of violence should also portray, in human terms, the consequences of that violence to its victims and its perpetrators. The goals articulated by these network standards are good ones--they are the same goals I hope to achieve with this legislation. Unfortunately, the standards developed pursuant to the 1990 antitrust exemption were never adhered to by the networks. Instead, the television industry ignored and violated those standards, thereby rendering the antitrust exemption meaningless. We know this because an industry commissioned study by the National Cable Television Association tells us as much. That NCTA study, issued in 1998, reported that: The way that most TV violence is portrayed continues to pose risks to viewers . . . Much of TV violence is still glamorized. . . . Most violence on television continues to be sanitized. Television often ignores or underestimates what happens to the victims of violence . . . Much of the serious physical aggression on television is still trivialized. The NCTA report could not put it more plainly. The networks failed to heed their own standards. I hope we have learned our lesson: no antitrust exemption is going to protect children from the harms associated with television violence. With respect to the causal impact of exposure to televised violence, the NCTA report was equally illuminating. It stated: Prior to this study, it had already been well established that television influences many kinds of attitudes and behaviors by modeling them as appropriate and/or desirable. A highly successful multi-billion dollar advertising industry is built on that premise. More specifically, violence on television has been shown in hundreds of studies to have an influence on aggressive behavior. Over the past 20 years, numerous respected academic and public health organizations and agencies--including the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association, the U.S. Surgeon General, and the National Institute of Mental Health--have reviewed the existing body of evidence in this area and have unanimously affirmed the validity of that conclusion. Finally, several weeks ago, the Surgeon General released a preliminary report that concludes-- yet again--that there exists a scientific link between violent television programming and increased aggression in children. The report states: ``A diverse body of research provides strong evidence that exposure to violence in the media can increase children's aggressive behavior in the short term.'' The report notes further that a smaller body of reports demonstrates that ``long- term effects exist, and there are strong theoretical reasons that this is the case.'' Finally, the report concludes that ``Research to date justifies sustained efforts to curb the adverse effects of media violence on youths.'' So there you have it. We have come full circle with two significant surgeon general reports almost thirty years apart and scores of studies in between. In the interim, Congress and the Federal Communications Commission have tried to address this problem with a mix of regulation and self regulation. These attempts have been unsuccessful. In the 1970s, FCC Chairman Dick Wiley attempted to cajole industry to adopt a family hour, but that ultimately was abandoned. Then, in addition to the failed 1990 antitrust exemption, we acted in 1996, as part of the Telecommunications Act, to require televisions to be equipped with a V- Chip. We know today, however, almost five years since that provision was passed, that the V-chip is not working. For example, an April 2000 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation demonstrates that only 9 percent of parents of children aged 2-17 own a television with a V-Chip. Moreover, only one-third of these parents (3 percent of all parents) have programmed the chip to block unsuitable programming. Finally, the survey indicated that 39 percent of parents of children aged 2-17 had never heard of the V-Chip. As if that was not bad enough, we know further that the industry developed ratings system designed to work in conjunction with the V- chip is failing as well. To be specific, although almost all broadcast and cable channels now encode their programs with ratings, many violent programs are in fact not specifically rated ``V'' for violence--thereby rendering the system ineffective. The most recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation on this subject found that 79 percent of shows with violence did not receive the ``V'' rating. If the V-Chip and the ratings system do not provide enough protection, it is our responsibility to fill in the gap. Last year, the Senate Commerce Committee held two high profile hearings to examine an issue related to televised violence--that of marketing violence to children. At those hearings we reviewed industry practices as outlined in a Federal Trade Commission report that found that the entertainment industry as a whole routinely marketed violent fare to children that was in fact rated as inappropriate for those same children. I raise this subject because some members of industry responded to the FTC report and our hearings by choosing to limit the advertising of violent material on television to certain hours of the day. In other words, they too believe that it is better to shield children from exposure to violent images when they are likely to comprise a substantial portion of the audience. While I applaud those voluntary actions, they do not go far enough, and as a result, we in Congress have to do more. If it is good for children to limit violent advertisements, it follows that it should be good for children to limit violent programming. A recent study by Stanford University supports this conclusion. Released last month, the study determined that aggression by children can be reduced by limiting their exposure to media violence--exactly the approach advocated in our Safeharbor legislation. Mr. President, that is why I am introducing my legislation today. My bill takes a two track approach to television violence. First, it would require the FCC to study whether the V-Chip and the content-based ratings system can capably meet the compelling government interest in protecting children from the harms associated with their exposure to violence on television. The FCC is to complete this determination within 12 months of enactment and is directed to continue an ongoing annual assessment of this issue. If the FCC at any time determines that the V-Chip and the ratings do not constitute an effective means of satisfying the government's compelling interest in protecting children, then it must institute a Safeharbor to shield children from violent programs when they are likely to comprise a substantial portion of the audience. While this legislation would apply to broadcast television and basic satellite and cable programming, it would exempt pay-per-view and premium cable and satellite programming from the Safeharbor. Prior to the imposition of any safeharbor, the legislation directs the FCC to develop rules penalizing broadcasters and cable and satellite programmers for distributing violent programming on television that is not blockable by the V-Chip. These penalties will be triggered if violent shows are not in fact rated ``V'' for violence as required by the ratings system. This provision will increase the incentive for programmers to rate their shows accurately, and responds to evidence that most violent programming is in fact not specifically rated for violence, and therefore is not blockable by the V-Chip. This legislation was reported favorably by the Senate Commerce Committee last year by a 17-1 vote. I look forward to moving the bill out of Committee again this year, and I hope that we can secure enactment of this measure for the first time in this Congress. Mr. President, the evidence is in, we know the results, and we have a solution. Its time to enact a safeharbor for television violence. Mr. President, I refer to page 23 of volume 3 of ``A History of Broadcasting in the United States.'' It alludes to the year 1949 and the production of the program ``Man Against Crime,'' starring Ralph Bellamy. I begin right on page 23: ``Man Against Crime was sponsored by Camel Cigarettes. This affected both writing and direction. Mimeographed instructions told writers, ``Do not have the heavy or any disreputable person smoking a cigarette. Do not associate the smoking of cigarettes with undesirable scenes or situations plot wise.'' Cigarettes had to be smoked gracefully, never puffed nervously. A cigarette was never given to a character to calm his nerves, since this might suggest a narcotic effect. Writers received numerous plot instructions. Listen carefully because this is the instruction that the writers were given 50 years ago: It has been found that we retain audience interest best when our story is concerned with murder. Therefore, although other crimes may be introduced, somebody must be murdered, preferably early, with the threat of more violence to come. That is from the History of Broadcasting. The industry knows that violence is a moneymaker. Ten years ago, the distinguished Senator from Illinois said: No, no, wait a minute, don't rush into this thing; freedom of speech, freedom of speech. We don't want to damage the originality of the producers. So we gave an antitrust exemption so they could work together because Senator Simon said they could not work together and regulate because of antitrust provisions in the Federal statute. We gave them that protection. Then came a very interesting study from cable television. Every time I speak in the Chamber, they give me another study. That is why I wish I could sing: When will they ever learn? This study, done a few years ago, was financed by the National Cable Television Association, but it was done by the University of California at Santa Barbara, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. It included, amongst other council members, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the Producers Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America West, the Caucus for Producers, Writers and Directors, the American Bar Association, and the Directors Guild of America. Point: The very people who are doing the producing found that violence begets children's violence. Three weeks ago, a 13-year-old was sentenced to life in prison for bludgeoning to death a 48-pound 8 year old. He had seen this on a cable wrestling show. These wrestlers jumped on each other, they beat each others' heads against a post, and then flung opponents out of the ring. That was the undisputed record: That the 13-year-old saw wrestling matches where everybody got up and walked away unharmed and came back the next week. Just last month, someone else emulated a stunt on MTV showing how people could be set on fire and then walk away unharmed. The individual saw the MTV program, tried it, and got first- and second-degree burns all over his body. I will never forget years ago on the ``Johnny Carson Show,'' they had a fellow with a tie around his neck, and he dropped through a trap door and hung and, again, just walked away. The next day a couple found their young teenager hanging from the bedroom fan. He had tied himself up, got on the edge of the bed, and jumped off and hanged himself. We know monkey see-monkey do, and it begets violence. This country, the industrial country of the United States, has more violence than all other countries combined. What have the other countries done? For years on end they have had a safe harbor in Europe, in Australia, and in New Zealand, and other places. They have a time set aside when children dominate the audience and thou shalt not have violent shows during that time. It works. Their children do not shoot up classrooms, they do not emulate violence, or kill little girls. That does not go on in Europe, but it continues to increase in our country, according to the Surgeon General's report just about to be released. We see it on the increase. The Kaiser Family Foundation counters with: Oh, well, you have to get the V-chip. Under legal decisions, you have to use the least intrusive method of regulating so-called free speech. So we put the V-chip into the 1996 Telecommunications Act. That was supposed to allow parents to take charge. We constantly hear that when we know it is not the case. Sixty-two percent of young single women are in the workforce with latchkey children at home. We have tried that V-chip. One, 40 percent of those interviewed under the Kaiser Family Foundation have never even heard of the V-chip--what are you talking about? Two, less than 10 percent have ever had the V-chip, and, three, less than 3 percent have ever used it. It is impractical. You have to run around to the three or four TVs in the house and say: I have the program, and before I go to work this morning, I am going to put in the chip. Come on, that is unreal, but that is the political solution which has not worked. I do not want to be put aside. I have been put aside. I offered an amendment a couple of years ago to the juvenile justice bill. Some colleagues said: Fritz, I would vote for your amendment, but I don't want any amendments on the juvenile justice bill, or we have not tried the V-chip. They gave any putoff they could think of. We found out that we ought to just include it in a statute. In this bill, we direct the Federal Communications Commission to have hearings on this matter and determine whether or not the V-chip is effective and, if it is not, to promulgate a safe harbor. Constitutionally, the Federal Communications Commission has been given that authority on indecency. Why not on violence? These programs have not been properly rated. We prescribe in this measure that the industry start rating violence--V for violence--on these shows. If they do not, there is going to be a penalty. A Stanford University study has just been issued whereby they have tested the diminution of violence on television and there has been a diminution then in children's violence in that particular community. We will bring that to the floor. We are ready to debate this legislation. This is a bipartisan bill. We have had Republican and Democrats in the last three Congresses join in, but we have never had a fair hearing on the floor. We have done this in a deliberate, measured fashion so that we can get it considered in this Congress. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, it has been said that there's no system worse than democracy--except for all of the other ones. What this aphorism reveals is that though democracy, in its republican form of elections, is the best form of government that we know of at this point, it nevertheless has its shortcomings, be they human or mechanical. A close election certainly tends to highlight these human and mechanical flaws in our voting systems. This was never more proven than by last year's Presidential election. Last November and December stories of overvotes, undervotes, and hanging chads flooded the media. Many voters complained that confusing butterfly ballots led them to make unintended choices, while others claimed they were denied the opportunity to vote by being left off of the registration rolls or through intimidation. Unfortunately, these problems are not new. We've had difficulties using punch cards and other machine-readable ballots for more than 30 years. Federal officials were made aware of these issues as early as 1978, by a National Bureau of Standards, now NIST, study, Science & Technology: Effective Use of Computing Technology in Vote-Tallying. That study--and another in 1988--found difficulties in vote-tallying stemming from management failures, technology failures, and human operational failures. The 1978 report cited major difficulties in 7 cities. One of the key recommendations was the elimination of the pre- scored punch card, similar to the kind used in Palm Beach County's Votomatic machines. We know that there is a problem, the question is what are we going to do about it? Senator McCain and I have one answer--the American Voting Standards and Technology Act, which we are introducing today. In short, the Act would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop voluntary consensus standards to ensure the accuracy and validation of the voting process from voter registration through any recount. Quite simply, NIST knows standards--it has been in the standards game for over 100 years. Its experts know how to work with stakeholders like state and local governments and private sector technology leaders to build valid, usable, reliable standards that people trust. The agency updates its standards regularly. NIST's voluntary voting standards could set a threshold for accuracy, maintenance, and usability of voting systems that would feed into the second leg of our program--matching grants to State and local government agencies to purchase new or rehabilitated voting equipment. We want to give priority in this program to the places least able to afford state of the art voting equipment--the precincts with high unemployment and low income levels. However, because we don't want to buy new equipment if no one knows how to use it, our bill would authorize the Department of Commerce to give grants to State agencies to strengthen voter education campaigns. We want voters to understand how to use the technology that is in their polling place and how to determine if their vote will be correctly counted. The right to vote is the most fundamental right bestowed upon Americans by the U.S. Constitution. There are millions of Americans who lost faith in the guarantee and exercise of this fundamental right due to the circumstances of the last election. Senator McCain and I do not claim to know how to restore the American people's faith in our voting systems. However, we do have an idea that setting basic performance standards, helping election officials acquire systems which meet those standards, and helping voters use those systems is part of the solution. When we return from the President's Day recess, we plan to schedule hearings to work through the details of our legislation and improve it. We realize that our American Voting Standards and Technology Act is only one piece of the pie, and we also look forward to working with other Senators who are examining other aspects of the electoral system.